Blog: galactic mystery solvers

doing more with less . potentially.

reasons i was wrong about the 80s. "heavens above".

oh - wait a minute.

julio iglesias: making CREAM like that n--. willie knows how awesome this is. bonus mathematics:

suspended bicycle. bug-eyed gallic horndog. moral panic. "when you go to the boondocks..." full whack: it's not just for workers rolling barrels.

the marsden rattlers - 'the lambton worm' this story scared the be-jesus out of me when i were a lad. up in geordie-land, GMS' far-northern correspondent confirms, they taught the song to schoolchildren, in full dialect. fierce. from bbc's folk on 2 presents: northumbrian folk essential

• the marsden rattlers - 'the lambton worm... » 06 The Lambton Worm.mp3

mclusky, bullingdon arms, oxford, 18 january 2001 etc. etc. i'll be honest: i'll struggle to write much about mclusky on the gigsplurge . the band played oxford approximately once every three months, for three to four years, playing the same venue virtually every time, always with a similar set of rasping, buzzing, Pavement-gone-ADHD, Albini-nasty punk screeds, always with a different set of sacred-cow targets for between-song Bill Hicks-riffing onstage outbursts. mclusky were never less than the best, funniest band in britain, never [...]

GMS is pouring liquor on the ground for those that ain't make it. don't worry, i have an absorbent cloth. XXXXX had a major effect on me at a hard point in my thesis life. their passing made me reflect on the records they released commercially and think which mp3 or youtube video-link i would post, unless they were wrestlers, in which case a different kind of tribute is called for. [...]

Workhouse, Reynolds, Bullingdon Arms, Oxford, 21 December 2000 As promoters, we generally had two ideas. One was greasy, swaggering blues punk in thrall to Jon Spencer, the Birthday Party and the Gun Club. The other was chugging minor chord post-rock made by blokes who felt Steve Albini had a 'look' worth cultivating. Both sort-of-genres wore their budget credentials with a wry British underdog wit; neither had much success in the 00s, although there was the odd glimmer in chancers [...]

the GMS gigsplurge almost reached the end of 2000 by the end of 2009, and generated a lot of japanese spam in the process. a victory that you, reader, are welcome to share. Gold Blade, Holy Roman Empire, Twister, Toby Slater, Bullingdon Arms, Oxford, 14 December 2009 amidst the ruins of britpop and in the absence of anything else particularly coherent, a pattern has emerged across 2000: ageing punky greasers with impressive hair [...]

if i was to interrupt this blog for a spot of how's-your-father, chances are i'd head to the stereo and stick on some sunn o))) . those guys know a thing or two, i can tell you. they mostly hail from the good ol' USA , which we all know is the land that invented loving--just ask philip larkin, or the president of the united states .* we all like to have fun, don't we--as long as it's safe. and sunn's blade-hatted laser-fingered mind-goblin singer attila csihar is no different. but [...]

Tompaulin, Vigilance Black Special, Servant, Bullingdon Arms, Oxford, 30 November 2000 Finishing off the year with a trio of gigs GMS' gang booked at the Bully. Haven't a clue about Servant . Vigilance Black Special were second only to the Workhouse amongst the Oxford bands of the time. Rarely, for a local outift, they sounded like grown-ups: dark Lee Hazlewood soul mixing with a countryfied take on Henry's Dream -era Bad Seeds. They [...]

60s stuff. appalling interview. 80s stuff.

21st birthday spent with the punishing indie-drone misanthropy of six by seven . 30th birthday later this week, to be spent in the company of fuck buttons. if you've come here for damascene moments, the exit's that-a-way. if you've come here for lil' wayne, be my guest . underrated band that sounds like spacemen 3 of the decade?

rural pursuit. portly grunger. beer labelled beer.

all the basics. and then some. "a pot from spaho ahmetovic". goose towel.

lariat. arm drag takedown. spinning toe hold.

blurry stuff. big hair. rocking out in a warm coat.

darkened room. space nymphs. worried look. ground control geek hat.

Penthouse, Monkey Island, Oxford Point, 11 November 2000 The New Rock Revolution which the NME heralded at the start of the decade promised to re-inject sneering, swaggering, snotty rock'n'roll attitude into a directionless music scene. Of course, it did nothing of the sort. Beyond a few good debut albums, the scene opened up new possibilities for hair-care salesmen, mobile phone companies and teen drama scriptwriters, while closing down opportunities for rockers too sick, ugly or funny to market. Penthouse (renamed Fifty Tons of Black Terror after legal [...]